‘Batman: Arkham Asylum’ is a mad success

Sept. 15, 2009 | 3:23 p.m.

Ben Fritz writes for the Business section of the Los Angeles Times and has mad-love for all things geeky, so you’ll see his name here at the Hero Complex a lot in the seasons to come. Here’s an exceprt from his update on the sales of the hottest video game to ever come out of Gotham City…

Warner Bros. may not have a new Batman movie this year, but the Caped Crusader is turning out to be the biggest thing in Hollywood-licensed video games.

“Batman: Arkham Asylum” sold 593,000 units in August according to NPD Group, which tracks industry sales. It’s the biggest first-month sales for any video game this year based on a Hollywood property and particularly impressive given that “Arkham Asylum” was released Aug. 25, meaning NPD only tracked its sales for five days.

Warner said last week that Arkham Asylum, which received stellar reviews, had sold nearly 2 million units worldwide through Sept. 8, a very strong launch for a video game…